l, or devil's dam, who has timed her
turns so strangely?" said Varney. "We can ill afford to spare any of our
actors."

"GAUDET NOMINE SIBYLLAE," said the first speaker; "she is called Sibyl
Laneham, wife of Master Robert Laneham--"

"Clerk to the Council-chamber door," said Varney; "why, she is
inexcusable, having had experience how to have ordered her matters
better. But who were those, a man and a woman, I think, who rode so
hastily up the hill before me even now? Do they belong to your company?"

Wayland was about to hazard a reply to this alarming inquiry, when the
little diablotin again thrust in his oar.

"So please you," he said, coming close up to Varney, and speaking so as
not to be overheard by his companions, "the man was our devil major, who
has tricks enough to supply the lack of a hundred such as Dame Laneham;
and the woman, if you please, is the sage person whose assistance is
most particularly necessary to our distressed comrade."

"Oh, what! you have got the wise woman, then?" said Varney. "Why, truly,
she rode like one bound to a place where she was needed. And you have a
spare limb of Satan, besides, to supply the place of Mistress Laneham?"

"Ay, sir," said the boy; "they are not so scarce in this world as your
honour's virtuous eminence would suppose. This master-fiend shall spit a
few flashes of fire, and eruct a volume or two of smoke on the spot, if
it will do you pleasure--you would think he had AEtna in his abdomen."

"I lack time just now, most hopeful imp of darkness, to witness his
performance," said Varney; "but here is something for you all to drink
the lucky hour--and so, as the play says, 'God be with Your labour!'"

Thus speaking, he struck his horse with the spurs, and rode on his way.

Lambourne tarried a moment or two behind his master, and rummaged his
pouch for a piece of silver, which he bestowed on the communicative imp,
as he said, for his encouragement on his path to the infernal regions,
some sparks of whose fire, he said, he could discover flashing from him
already. Then having received the boy's thanks for his generosity he
also spurred his horse, and rode after his master as fast as the fire
flashes from flint.

"And now," said the wily imp, sidling close up to Wayland's horse,
and cutting a gambol in the air which seemed to vindicate his title to
relationship with the prince of that element, "I have told them who YOU
are, do you in return tell me who I am?"

"